


The great in between

by holy_roller_novocaine



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Kind of AU, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:13:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holy_roller_novocaine/pseuds/holy_roller_novocaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As long as she can remember she has seen ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The great in between

As long as she can remember she has seen ghosts.

And with those ethereal encounters, life imparted lessons onto Edith. One is that everyone fears death, and the one’s regrets they feel upon parting from the living plain, is what they come to embody, once they have departed.

Children are encompassed in innocence, they retain some of their earthly form. Though those who undergo horrific deaths have those scars imprinted on them, their spiritual forms pluming in twirls and swirls, echoing the image of their final death throes.

As a youth, Edith played with imaginary friends. These companions were departed children, who were attracted to the girl who seemed to see, touch, and understand the intangible.

They played, Edith's flouncing skirts in the wind, and upon her skirts tails are phantom plumes, her laughter echoed by giggles that only fall upon her ears.

Imaginary friends are typical for a child, especially one without cousins her age, nor siblings, or close companions. Her parents do not worry, Greta Cushing sees nothing wrong with it, as long as her daughter is not underfoot. Carter Cushing…. Carter looks out the window and watches his daughter speak, carry on long conversations, gesticulating wildly with her hands. A phantom breeze tousles her—it is a hot, humid day, there is no breeze—Carter Cushing watches his daughter and there is worry in his eyes.

The age of innocence ends quickly, for where there is light, darkness is bound to be drawn. Edith is a beacon of light in an abyss of endless darkness.

One night Carter and Greta awaken to blood curdling screams. They awaken in shock, that is only momentarily as their parental instincts roar to the forefront and they come running. Edith is found hysterical, crying out about demons, decay, _death._

They offer her token comfort, tell her she is simply having nightmares, and when the hysteria has reached a calm, Greta and Carter look to each other, there is worry in both of their eyes.

This is the calm before the storm.

These outburst continue for a fortnight. The servants are run ragged, her parents are run ragged, the doctor makes suggestions—a sanitarium, _an insane asylum_.

Carter looks upon his child that stares up at the ceiling with flickering eyes, seeing horrors that they are only blind to.

He knows what he must do. He must call upon the last resort.

Carter will bring her to the eccentric grandmother that sends Edith sweets upon her birthday and Christmas, but is not visited and vice versa. He will call upon the estranged women he calls mother, for she is afflicted with the same… “gift” as Edith.

\---

Edith meets Grandmother Cushing when she is eight.

The year she spends with her is invaluable.

Grandmother Cushing walks with one foot planted firmly on the earth and the other skipping in the realm beyond.

She teaches her granddaughter how to protect herself, these phantoms, these spirits they are complex and will rely on her, for she is a tether, an anchor to this world.

Their needs will vary, and if it is within her power Edith must help them, this world has nothing to offer them once their mortal body has ceased to exist. Unresolved business is what keeps them shackled, Edith has the means of rectifying that.

Spirits vary, they echo their last death throes, and their violent reactions are inevitable. Edith must prepare herself to keep from harm. They will lash out, they will stalk her, haunt her sleep, pester her like a clinging, whining child in desperate need of attention. They will do this until they are settled at peace.

Grandmother Cushing’s lessons are difficult, tedious, and more times than not leave Edith in tears. Nonetheless she will learn, when one straddles the physical and intangible realms, there is no choice but to.

When Edith Cushing returns to her parents her smile has returned, but her guilelessness has flickered out, a maturity has settled on her shoulders like a cumbersome burden. Carter and Greta look to each other, and the worry in their eyes has become resignation. She is nine and she now knows a world weariness that her parents are ignorant of, and that gives them heart break for it is a parent’s job to protect the child, but Edith is now beyond their grasp.

Life goes on, and on its steps death follows, such is the cycle.

Edith encounters much in that short time.

Six months later, Grandmother Cushing dies at sixty eight, the moment she passes Edith finds herself surrounded by a new spirit. It does not take a humanoid form, it settles around her in a cloak of silvery-white plumes of smokes that coalesces to and fro. Its presence feels her with warmth, presenting a barrier of love, a cloak of protection.

One year later her mother dies from black cholera.

Greta Cushing’s spirit takes three days to find her daughter.

The night following her mother’s funeral, Edith knows she is coming, how could she not?  

The atmosphere becomes chilly, the lighting flickers, the hall creaks ominously, and Edith feels a thrill down her spine—all telltale signs.

The door to her room is open, Edith sits upon her bed and waits for her mother to manifest. Her grandmother’s protection surrounds her minimally, letting her know the impending manifestation will lack the usually violence.

And there!

There she appears, skeletal and corpse like and her favorite gown died black for her funeral habit. Momentarily Edith mourns her mother’s loss of beauty, but then Greta’s phantom surges forward, and Edith flinches. The spirit grasps her shoulders tightly, and leans forward until she is beside Edith’s ear and hisses forth a warning, _“Beware of Crimson Peak!”_ A warning she does not comprehend but takes to heart, she looks up to her mother and tells her she will tread carefully.

Greta’s spirit seems to look upon her daughter, and raises forth a skeletal hand that runs through the blond of Edith's hair. Edith closes her eyes and smiles.

From then forth there is the barrier that surrounds her like a cloak, and there are skeletal hands wrapped in pluming smoke of lace that rest upon her shoulders. When danger comes the cloak surrounds her in an impenetrable barrier, when danger lurks those hands tighten upon her shoulder in warning.

_Fourteen years later…_

Spirits follow people, sometimes they are departed parents watching over their children, sometimes they are tethered to a person for a reason—lover/spouse, child, revenge, murder… the reasons are various.

When Edith Cushing encounters Sir Thomas Sharpe, her mother’s hands tighten till the point of pain and the promise of bruises. Edith is only able to make out faint strains of red smoke. When she meets his sister Lady Lucile Sharpe the cloak of white smoke threatens to swallow her up whole, her mother manifest in all her black pluming glory and Edith barely contains her gasps of shock.

There is a hiss of: _“There is blood, so much blood on their hands.”_

For beyond and around Lady Lucille Sharpe are faint figures of red plumes, phantoms in various state of horrific deaths.  

And they look to her.

Edith knows regardless of the trials and tribulations ahead of her, she must help them.  

    

 

     

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many feels for this movie. Wrote this quickly, and I'm soooooo sleepy, will come back fix grammatical problems. Will be seeing crimson peak again tomorrow.


End file.
